Posts in Philosophy
The snowball effect
The snowball effect

We are now (hopefully) in our last two week of renovations. Our houses have been in dire need of not just upkeep, but improvement. On the top of my head, I can think of two reasons why everything seemed to break down at once. Some of the broken stuff should have been fixed last year, but much of the schedule had to be postponed due to a little baby boy. That’s the obvious one. The not so obvious one is that we might have started a momentum of fixing things, that is hard to stop once you get it in motion.

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Diary, Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvisthouse, renovation, diy, momentum, incremental improvement, growth, progressComment
Conversations reveal solutions
Conversations reveal solutions

Last week I had a call with my nurse, a routine thing because I recently turned 40 years old. I had left some test samples and answered a lengthy questionnaire regarding just about every topic regarding my physical and mental health. Or Body and Soul, which are the terms I would prefer. In the questionnaire, one of the topics was “Is there anything in your life that you want to reduce?” or something similar. My gut response was screen time. I spend way too much time behind screens and just a little while of free thought here and there would make a huge difference. When talking with my nurse for an hour, I cracked an idea that is ridiculously simple on how to achieve it. Isn’t it fascinating how you can often find solutions to your problems yourself as soon as you articulate and define your problem to someone else?

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Diary, Photography, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistsoul, mind, addiction, screen time, dogs, walkingComment
A lesson from physical labor
A lesson from physical labor

Last Saturday I spent digging around 15 meters of network cable in the ground. The only thing that remains now is to make a wall pass-through and install some wall outlets in the houses and then finally, all our houses are hard-wired with cat6 cables. It’s something that I have been waiting to do since we moved here, to get rid of the shaky Wi-Fi connection. But you must always rank-order your work and it took me four years to execute more important priorities before I could start solving this simple but highly annoying problem. And it felt so good to put it all back together. When I was done, it really struck me that there are few things that feels more satisfying than to complete some proper physical labor, to the degree that you can raise the “mission accomplished” sign.

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Diary, Parenting, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistparenting, work, exercise, scheduling, planning, productivityComment
You will never get any new old friends
You will never get any new old friends

Have you ever thought about which music that really makes your heart sing? I suspect most of us would say that it’s the music you grew up with that has a special place in your heart. I haven’t come across any music that speaks to my soul as strongly as the favorites from my childhood and teenage years, with a handful of exceptions perhaps. But the pattern is clear as crystal. The relationship with music that you acquire when growing up stays with you for the rest of your life. I realized this weekend that the same thing goes for old friendships. You can get new friends, but you cannot get any new old friends.

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Philosophy, DiaryRikard Öqvistfriends, friendship, celebration, familyComment
My greatest mentor
My greatest mentor

Is it possible to know a person without ever meeting them in person? Without a doubt, yes. My family now live in my wife´s grandparents old house since 2019. I never got the honor to meet them because they both died before I met my future wife. The person I am referring to here is Kurt, her grandfather. By walking in his footsteps and observing his sometimes very creative and especially fast solutions to technical problems on the premises, I think I now know him very well. And the reason is that his approach to problem solving is as antithetical to my own that is humanly possible. The contrast couldn’t be larger even if I tried. And that is an invaluable lesson to a guy like me.

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistpersonality, productivity, focusComment
When to break the rules
When to break the rules

Last weekend we celebrated midsummer at my parents and all the relatives. Our boys put big smiles on everybody’s face, but especially my grandmother, who now has great grandmother on her CV. She also celebrated her 90th birthday on Saturday which coincide with Midsummer, which is a big Swedish holiday, so we had a nice celebration. When the dinner was over, and it was bedtime for the little boys, 3-year-old Elis was nowhere to be found. We looked and finally we found him with great grandma, who had already gone to bed. She was watching TV and Elis had cozied up in the double bed sofa next to her. And when I told him it was time to go to bed he just said. No dad, I am sleeping in THIS bed and watch TV. Great grandma had zero objections. We don’t see each other that often because we live in different cities. I noticed the biggest smile I had ever seen, literally, on great grandma’s face, when she finally had the opportunity to just be together with him. This was clearly one of those occasions when rules had to be broken. I just laughed and said, OK, you sleep here that’s perfectly fine. I also noted that Elis eyes were very tired, and minutes later he was snoring. It was the best 90th birthday present ever.

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Philosophy, Habits, ParentingRikard Öqvistparenting, rules, machine learning, habits, familyComment
The few cannot control the many
The few cannot control the many

Austria recently became the first EU country to make vaccinations mandatory for all adults above 18. I just checked some numbers, and the current coverage seems to be around 75%. To enforce the law, the government have decided on fines of 600 EUR up to a total of 3600 EUR per quarter. This move is interesting for several reasons, but the one that I find most interesting is that such a law will be completely impossible to enforce in practice on one condition: The ones who don’t want it simply need to say No, if their number is large enough.

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PhilosophyRikard Öqvistvaccine, covid, authoritarianism, austriaComment
What is your red line?
What is your red line?

During the current struggle between vaccinated and unvaccinated, I have been thinking about what it means to support the exclusion of certain groups from society. For example, Emmanuel Macron recently proposed that “they” should perhaps not be regarded as citizens. It is one thing to suggest enforced vaccinations in a heated online conversation or a Tweet, but once you dig a little deeper, certain noteworthy consequences appear. Below, I will simply list some proposals – simple solutions – that I have experienced in my own social network, and how I interpret their consequences. It will not be a pleasant read.

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PhilosophyRikard Öqvistcovid, evil, tyranny, humanityComment
You can’t win them all
You can’t win them all

After a couple of hours of screaming kids and dad duties I can finally start writing my blog post, Iron Maiden style: Two minutes to midnight. Tonight, the only thing driving me forward is the routine. This is the 110th weekly post and for every week it just feels more and more difficult to miss it. I know that if I miss just one post, this blog project is over, but I am not there yet. I find great pleasure in writing even if no one is reading, and that makes it all worth it.

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PhilosophyRikard Öqvistwriting, thinking, parentingComment
Freedom or constraints?
Freedom or constraints?

My wife was writing our weekly food/groceries order online tonight and asked me: “What would you like to have for dinner this Friday when your friend visits us?”. I couldn’t think of anything. Isn’t that interesting? I have all the possibilities in the world and come up with no answer. Had she instead asked, “Would you like to eat pancakes or meatballs?” the problem would have been extremely easy. Voila, we just created a boundary condition. There’s clearly a flip side with total freedom when it comes to creativity.

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PhilosophyRikard Öqvistchoices, leadership, culture, creativity, freedom, responsibilityComment
Am I on the path to Heaven or Hell?
Am I on the path to Heaven or Hell?

I have been visiting my mom and dad during the Christmas holidays, and the visit has clearly demonstrated the importance of routines and habits. When you are administering a two kid-two dog family, routines are very important to get anything done. But the challenge is to keep the routines going when you’re away for a couple of days. One of the habits that did work though, is the writing practice. I was about to go to bed, when it hit me “What a minute, it’s Monday and I haven’t written my weekly piece.” So, not allowed to go to sleep yet. This is the 108th weekly piece without interruption and I am not going to start tonight. My writing habit has become like a giant flywheel that is spinning at high speed. There is MORE resistance to NOT write, than what it is to fire up the laptop in the middle of the night and get going. How interesting!

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistfuture authoring, planning, habits, consistency, dreams, vision, goal, hell, nightmare, regretComment
It started with a Gut feeling
It started with a Gut feeling

A couple of years ago, I had a strong gut feeling that something bad was going to happen. Something really bad, and I told my wife that “we have to get out of here”. We had to get away from our nice apartment in the city and settle down in a house in the countryside. That gut feeling should not be dismissed. It has never failed me. Unfortunately, I have never been so right about anything in my whole life. Out here, in our new home – nothing, and I mean NOTHING has changed since 2019. A solid foundation keeps you sane.

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PhilosophyRikard Öqvistgut feeling, countrylife, covidComment
Laughter is contagious
Laughter is contagious

I’ve been doing a bit of simulator flying this last year in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. I’ve mostly been doing some sightseeing occasionally, using an old Xbox gamepad. It gets the job done, however, when I started flying in VR some problems arose when it was time to land the plane. I find the landing the most challenging part of a flight, by far. One critical aspect of landing is throttle control, because when landing you want to go slow, but not below the stall speed. I have lost count on the number of times I plummeted from the sky because of stalling and hopeless throttle control. Last week, I had enough and started scanning the 2nd hand market for a HOTAS system (Hands On Stick And Throttle). That is the flying equivalent to getting a steering wheel for your racing games. I finally found a seller, and it turned out to be a real feelgood story.

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PhilosophyRikard Öqvistfeelgood, wholesome, laughter, butterfly effect, humorComment
Most of the things you worry about never happen
Most of the things you worry about never happen

I have been working with the acoustic design of timber buildings my whole career, but it isn’t until this past year that actual buildings are inaugurated, and people move in. The building process is slow, and it takes several years from the start to the end user getting a new home. And even then, it’ll probably take another six months until you know whether you did a good job. If you hear nothing, that is. If something goes wrong and the tenants perceive annoyance, you will probably learn about it much sooner.

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Engineering, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistCLT, timber, buildings, civil engineeringComment
A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit
A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit

Yesterday I listened to a Podcast with Bret Weinstein (DarkHorse) on the topic of how to think like a Nobel Prize winner. The key takeaway is the same title is this blog post. The message resonated very strongly with me because I have used a similar approach for the past decade in various endeavors. The beginner sees a lot of options but has very few tools to use. The expert on the other hand, tends to see few solutions to a given problem, and has many different tools to solve them. To take the best of both worlds would indeed be a lot of options and many ways to approach the problem.

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Education, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistmentorship, growth, Nobel prize, musicComment
Order, chaos, productivity, and rest
Order, chaos, productivity, and rest

If you don’t have time to take a five-minute break, you should take a ten-minute break. I don’t remember the source of this quote, or even the exact wording, but there is a lot of wisdom in it. From experience, I have learned that when your workload increases until the point tunnel vision starts to kick in, it is critical do remember this simple rule. When it feels as if the to-do list grows faster than your ability, some of the first things to skip is breaks, exercise and decluttering. Last week was just one of those weeks. Really, the whole last month has been like that. I had so much stuff to do that I had to work the whole weekend. So, I applied the rule and spent two wonderful days with my family, took long dog walks and cleaned both my office and my home.

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Habits, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistchaos, order, productivity, rest, alcohol, declutter, cleanyourroomComment
When the universe smiles at you
When the universe smiles at you

There’s a Swedish saying “En olycka kommer sällan ensam” (When it rains, it pours). If that is true, the opposite must also be true, but I don’t know any similar saying by heart. So, I prefer to think of it as if the universe is smiling at you. Because it sometimes feels as if the whole universe conspires to help you. When I have had those positive experiences, the typical scenario is that I am extremely stressed out about something, and then suddenly the problem just solves itself without attention. Yes, sometimes the best solution to a problem can simply be to just ignore it. Last week I experienced one of the most enjoyable smiles so far.

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PhilosophyRikard Öqvistluck, flow, productivity, stress, pressure, consulting, planningComment
Don't miss it
Don't miss it

The company Kodak had a slogan many years ago – The Kodak Moment. That was a very good tagline that meant that the best photos aren’t the ones that are staged and prepared. The best ones are taken in the spur of the moment. Because they are real. The picture you see here is one of those moments. I was visiting my great grandmother this weekend with my family, and when I was playing around with my son I looked out through the window and the view stunned me. The lake was literally 100 % calm, like a mirror. Not a single ripple on the water. I knew instantly that this was a picture that was to be taken now or never. So, I grabbed my phone and took the shot right through the window. It turned out pretty good. This is one of the best things about modern smartphones. A great camera is always nearby when you need it.

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Philosophy, ParentingRikard Öqvistphotography, children, photo, smartphone, camera Comments
Pre-internet memories
Pre-internet memories

When I was a kid, I had a Lego semi-trailer truck that must have been one of my very first sets (I was too young to remember). It was released in 1984 when I was two years old. I cannot ever remember this set ever being built. It had some special pieces with stickers, so I knew it was there. Here’s the catch: The instruction manual was shredded (probably by yours truly), and I only had some fragments but not enough to build the set. This has frustrated me sub-consciously for about 37 years. Until now.

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Philosophy, EngineeringRikard Öqvistlego, memory lane, progress, grotwth, ai, futureComment
You had ONE job
You had ONE job

This weekend we decided to go all in on potty training our son. The plan was simple. Bring out all of dad’s old Legos and just play with them and observe and act when necessary. It worked very well but there was a small bump in the road. You will be hard pressed to figure out which one of us had more fun with the Legos. I remember thinking to myself, whatever you do don’t let him pee on the carpet. Seconds later, I turned around, and he hasn’t just peed on the carpet, but right in the middle of the poor old instruction manual… I had so much fun building Legos down memory lane that I completely forgot my important job.

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Parenting, PhilosophyRikard Öqvistlego, dad, parenting, memory lane, focusComment